Duke got its first snowfall of the spring semester Sunday and despite the slick conditions, students made the most of the day.
The snow began to fall at around 6:00 a.m. before turning into a wintry mix and then rain later in the afternoon. The University was under "severe weather policy" from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., which has since been extended until 7 p.m. Monday.
For first-year Bright Aboah, who is from Accra, Ghana, this was his first time seeing snow. In anticipation, he woke up at 7 a.m.—earlier than he would normally do so on a weekend.
“I took my jacket, went outside, and started fooling around and sliding," he said.
First-years Eric Seng, Alec Anderson, Madison Jaffrey and Ro Buhrman woke up in the morning, made hot chocolate and played Christmas music to “set the vibes.”
They then went to breakfast at Marketplace. On the way back, they found empty shopping carts by Randolph residence hall, which they used as sleds.
“We went to breakfast and on the way back we took the shopping cart we found in the middle of the path, got a couple of our friends in it and pushed it down the path,” Seng said. “This was Alec’s brilliant idea.”
“We then slid around in the snow and threw snowballs at each other,” Anderson said.
At around 1 p.m., first-year Ruhan Desai and his friends were out having a snowball fight. Desai is from India and like Aboah, does not see snow often in his hometown.
“We got up early. We went out to Cloche [Coffee], got a cup of hot mocha, sat by the window, saw the snow and had a nice morning,” Desai said.
When they got back, an emotional support dog accompanied the group while they played in the snow.
“The dog’s having fun,” Desai said. “His name is Scoot.”
Several students took to the East and West Campus quads to build snowmen. On West Campus’ Abele Quad, several students had built snowmen—or more accurately, snow devils—that represented Duke’s mascot.
Some featured devil horns built out of snow, while another had been anointed with the light-up horns provided to students at athletics events.
Other students spent their day as if it were any other, with the snow being only a minor inconvenience.
Sophomore Alex Migala had a tight schedule filled with club meetings. To get to those meetings, he had to walk through the mixture of snow and ice that had accumulated on campus walkways which he said he could have done without.
“I dredged through the mush out there to get to my activities today,” Migala said. “I had a little spacesuit going on with the boots and the hat and the six layers.”
Ronan Tegerdine, also a sophomore, spent his day doing his homework for his computer science class. This wasn’t his preference, as he would rather have made a snowman with his friends instead of doing magic squares, but said that he has seen snow before.
“I’ve seen snow before. I’m from Virginia,” Tegerdine said. “It’s always nice, but it’s nothing new. There wasn’t much snow either. It was kind of a light covering.”
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Adway S. Wadekar is a Trinity junior and former news editor of The Chronicle's 119th volume.